http://davescaddenpontooncraft.com/home.html
I know Dave personally, he owned the local Angler's Inn chain but sold it to concentrate on his pontoon craft business. He is a really great guy, someone who stands behind his products, which come with a life time warranty.
If you want to use an electric trolling motor, buy a craft that has a frame with an optional front mount. But don't expect it to get you home very fast if a stiff wind kicks up!
I have a 3 horsepower Tanaka outboard that weighs 1/3 as much as an electric trolling motor and Marine deep cycle battery combined, but puts out ten times the power. If you want to use something like that (you use it to get you there and get you back, using the fins to fish) make sure your boat has a really sturdy transom on the motor mount.
I seldom use my motors though. Very often the fish are close to shore anyway. The biggest waters I have fished are Yellowstone Lake and Strawberry Reservoir in Utah, and I seldom get out more than 30 feet from the shore. When your fishing water this big you really have to have something going on that concentrates the fish; at Yellowstone the fish always come in close to feed, because the water is cool year round. Strawberry only fly fishes well in the spring or fall, summer time is best fished with a boat. Ditto for most of the larger reservoirs that are full of bass.
Most of the time I am fishing high mountain lakes, or smaller reservoirs where you could kick or row back from just about any spot. I also find the spots where the wind typcially is blowing towards shore when it starts. This type of fishing is my favorite place to be, I even prefer it to river fishing.
My Outcast is white water rated, but I have only fished it in a river once. It was the Green river, which has rather anemic rapids most of the time, but as luck would have it I fished it at an historic high, around 5500 cubic feet per second (this year it averaged 800 cf/sec, which was very low.) Anyway the rapids looked like something out of "A River Wild" and I admit I was a little scared when approaching each one, primarily from my complete lack of experience. The worst rapid in the river is called "Mother in Law" and it has a rock called "Dead Man's Rock" or "Death Rock" or something like that that was barely underwater with the high flow, creating massive standing waves down river. The tongue of the rapid flows right into the rock then split to both sides. To navigate it you have to stay in tongue hurtling straight at it, then quickly row to the left tongue.
Well, as you have probably guessed by now, I couldn't get it to move left, and instead when right over the top of the rock, followed by the man sized standing waves. I thought I was a dead man, but that pontoon craft just bobbed over them like a cork and I ended only getting a little wet from the splashing white water.
Well, this is turning into a book, but if you have read this far i have one more tip: get a great pair of fins, you will use them more than anything else. I think Force Fins are the very best . They are pricey (about $120 dollars) but worth every penny. They are designed like a frogs foot, you get maximum turbulence when kicking up, and almost zero resistance bringing the foot back. And you can actually walk in them. Don't buy the adjustable pair, get the ones that are designed to fit your boot size. (They also come off and on easier than any fins I have used.)
Have fun pontooning, you won't regret getting it!
Tom Davenport
On Jan 29, 2004, at 12:57 PM, John Underwood wrote:
What should I look for in a pontoon for that will be used mostly for river fishing? You know length, do I need a motor mount or anchor etc. Now I may put in on still water once in a while but I will never put into swift water. I want to use it to fish not as a thrill ride or death wish.
